Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Missing Stories at New York Times — Last week everyone was linking to this spoof about the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction. It even managed to become the first item displayed if you typed in 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' on Google (though Google has since changed that). In the same spirit, here's a spoof page about Jayson Blair and the New York Times.
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2003.   Comments (0)
Puppy Love — puppy It sounded awful. Five puppies thrown onto the highway from a moving car. Tracy Lloyd claimed that she managed to save one of them, while other motorists scooped up the other four. Turns out the whole tale was bogus. Lloyd wasn't allowed to keep pets in her apartment, so she had made up a sob-story to convince her landlord to bend the rules for her. Her story was exposed when the person who sold the dog to her saw Lloyd telling about the highway incident on tv.
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2003.   Comments (2)
Baby Ink Perpetrators Found — David Emery, of About.com's Urban Legends and Folklore page, found out that the Baby Ink tattoo parlor was an April Fool's day joke created by a couple of San Diego DJs. The DJs boast about the prank on their website (you need to scroll about halfway down to find the reference).
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2003.   Comments (0)
The Mystery of Splat Solved — Finally an answer to the riddle of 'what is Splat' that sounds like it's probably correct. According to John Lundberg of circlemakers.org, Splat was a sculpture created by the British artist John Isaacs in the mid 1990s.
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2003.   Comments (0)
The Anniversary of Roswell — roswell On July 8, 1947, 56 years ago today, the Roswell Daily Record made UFO history by announcing on its front page the discovery by the army of a flying saucer in the Roswell region. The army soon retracted its statement that it had discovered a flying saucer, leading to ever-growing suspicion of a cover-up. Here's a transcript of the 1947 article.
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2003.   Comments (0)
Tattoos for Kids — Here's the latest hoax website making the rounds: Baby Ink, a tattoo parlor for kids. The site claims that any kid over the age of six months is allowed to get a tattoo as long as their parent signs a consent form. But I don't believe that's right. That would be a bit like saying kids are allowed to smoke or drink alcohol as long as their parents consent to it. No, I think you have to be 18 or over to get a tattoo (or is it 16 and over?). The site lists a San Diego location that's quite near to where I live. I think I'll drive by and see what's actually there.
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2003.   Comments (1)
Carl Spangler — A reporter at the Roswell Daily Record gets fired for printing a quote he claimed to have gotten from a groundskeeper at a local golf course named 'Carl Spangler.' In reality, the quote came from Bill Murray's character in Caddyshack, 'Carl Spackler.' The quote referred to a new type of hybrid grass developed by the groundskeeper that had this amazing feature: "you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on the stuff."
Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2003.   Comments (0)
Defacers Challenge — I haven't yet heard of any websites being defaced as part of today's Defacers' Challenge. Perhaps it was a hoax after all.
Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2003.   Comments (0)
Cassius Clay and the Phantom Punch — sonny liston Did Sonny Liston throw fights to Cassius Clay in 1964 and 1965? Many feel that Clay's 1965 victory, in particular, was prearranged, with Liston falling to the mat in the first round following a "phantom punch." Mike Dunn, of EastSideBoxing.com discusses the lingering controversy.
Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2003.   Comments (0)
Who is the real Saddam Hussein? — An audio broadcast being aired on Al-Jazeera purports to be the voice of Saddam Hussein delivering a message to the Iraqi people. As usual, it has left everyone wondering if it really is Saddam's voice, or just someone impersonating him. This recalls how everyone wondered whether the man in the video broadcast shown during the war was actually Hussein, or one of his doubles.
Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2003.   Comments (0)
Perpetual Motion Machine — magnetic energy converter Sandeep Acharya has shared with me his blueprints for building a machine that can convert magnetic energy into mechanical energy. He promises that it really works. Check it out for yourself.
Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2003.   Comments (0)
Happy Birthday, P.T. Barnum! — America's greatest showman, Phineas Taylor Barnum, born July 5, 1810, celebrates his 193rd birthday today. Happy Birthday, Barnum! In his autobiography Barnum had this to say about his birthday:
My first appearance upon this stage was on the 5th day of July, Anno Domini 1810. Independence Day had gone by, the cannons had ceased to thunder forth their remembrances of our National Anniversary, the smoke had all cleared away, the drums had finished their rattle, and when peace and quiet were restored, I made my debut. This propensity of keeping out of harm's way has always stuck by me.
Barnum was responsible for many hoaxes. Among his more famous ones were Joice Heth (billed as the oldest woman in the world) and the Feejee Mermaid. But he's probably best remembered for the circus he established later in his career, following his stint as a museum proprietor.
Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2003.   Comments (0)
The Taughannock Giant — July 4, 1879 a giant stone man (weight: 800 pounds; height: seven feet) was unearthed near Ithaca, New York (suspiciously close to Cardiff, New York). He was soon dubbed the Taughannock Giant. The stone man was described by a commentator as "a human figure lying on its back, arms nearly straight and the legs crossed at the ankle... well proportioned with the exception of the feet, which appear more like those of an ape." Scientists pronounced it an authentic fossilized man. In reality, it was the handiwork of one Ira Dean who had carved it in his basement. For the complete story, check out the Taughannock Stone Man Web Page created by Dan Dickinson, Jeff Dennis, and Ben Land.
Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2003.   Comments (0)
If you hear a baby crying… Don’t Open the Door — Here's a creepy email that's been making the rounds for at least half a year. It was sent to me by a visitor who wants to know if it's a hoax. Yes, it is. There have been no reported instances of serial killers using this particular modus operandi:

Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird.The police told her "Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over. The policeman said, "We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby's cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby. He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby's cries outside their doors when they're home alone at night. Please pass this on! and DO NOT open the door for a crying baby. This e-mail should probably be taken seriously because the Crying Baby theory was mentioned on America's Most Wanted this past Saturday when they profiled the serial killer in Louisiana.
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003.   Comments (3)
Woman stalks herself — Here's an odd story: an assistant professor at LSU is accused of sending threatening letters to herself.
Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003.   Comments (0)
Mysterious Blobs — giant blob Two days ago a giant blob-like creature washed up on a beach in Chile. Chilean scientists were baffled. They had no clue what the creature was. Based on the emails I've received, a lot of people immediately suspected it was some kind of elaborate hoax. But I don't think this was a hoax. Scientists now say that they believe the blobby thing was either the body of a giant octopus or discarded whale blubber.
I assume the Chilean blob bears no kinship to another blob which surfaced on the internet about two years ago. To this day I have no clue what this earlier mystery blob was. A real person? A photoshop trick? A fat suit? I've often seen it given the caption 'Splat.'

mystery blob splat
Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003.   Comments (3)
The case of the non-existent child — An Australian woman invented the existence of a child in order to hit up her ex-boyfriend for child support. She even went so far as to provide him with pictures of the (fake) child, and dreamed up a costly medical condition that the kid was suffering from, which she, of course, wanted the boyfriend to pay for.
Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003.   Comments (0)
The Hacker Challenge — A hacker website (defacers-challenge.com... it no longer appeares to be active) announces a contest to see who can deface the most websites this Sunday, July 6. Authorities suspect the whole thing may be a hoax.
Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003.   Comments (0)
Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003.   Comments (0)
It’s Jackalope Hunting Season — June 31 (which was yesterday, or maybe today, or maybe neither) is the only day of the year on which it's legal to hunt jackalopes in the state of Wyoming. You can get your own Jackalope hunting license from the Douglas, Wyoming Chamber of Commerce.
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003.   Comments (6)
Page 219 of 232 pages ‹ First  < 217 218 219 220 221 >  Last ›